Episode IX predictions based on what has happened in various anime
by gyuunmaesan
Summary: Wonderful metas about the new trilogy especially with The Last Jedi recently coming out have been written. Alas, this isn't one of them. These are things that probably won't happen but are fun to write about—I need to practice writing anyway. It gets crackier and crackier with each chapter.
1. Rey is literally nobody

**Musings about the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy and Concepts from Various Anime and Manga**

(Things that probably won't happen but are fun to write about—I need to practice writing anyway. It gets crackier and crackier with each chapter.)

 **Rey is Literally Nobody**

Were you disappointed when Rey's past wasn't elaborated upon in the movie The Last Jedi? A lot of people said that making Rey's parents nobodies was the film makers' way of reminding us that the Force didn't just reside in the Skywalkers. However, what if there was another way to explain this?

What if Rey was created by the Force in that moment when Ben attacks Luke in the Jedi Temple, signaling his turn to the Dark Side? The Force places her in Jakku, creates a wonky background story and memories for her and bides its time in awakening within her when the conditions are right. Cue in the story of Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Rey stitches the threads of Leia, Han and Ben Solo's stories back together. Cue in the story of Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. She paints Luke Skywalker back into the big picture that he tried to erase himself out of. She grows closer and closer to Kylo Ren, prompting him to re-evaluate his life choices and become more "Ben-like." All of these events happen and for what reason? Rey is actually Ben Solo. She is the embodiment of all the things Ben had to cut from himself in order to become Kylo Ren. From the point where she sprang into existence up to when the Force woke up in her, she grew and developed her own personality but she is Ben Solo, too. This can explain why Leia and Han seem to treat her like a daughter and why Luke sees the same raw power in her and Ben. Rey was created by the Force so that when the time was right, Ben Solo could be redeemed. Episode IX will be a story of redemption. We will be seeing how Rey will merge back into Ben Solo. This kind of resolution will answer how the members of the Resistance can accept Ben in spite of all of the atrocities Kylo Ren did. They will be able to do that because Rey lives in him.

Now before you all start castigating me for this silliness, this idea isn't really new. It's been done by CLAMP in their related material XXXholic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. My memory is faulty because I was not really a fan of the cartoons and comics but the basic story is that there's this witch with the ability to grant people wishes as long as those people agree to pay the witch's steep price. One day, someone made a very complicated wish with far-reaching, multi-dimension changing consequences. One of those consequences was the springing into existence of a character named Watanuki to fill in the gap caused by the disappearance of another character called Tsubasa from his dimension. Watanuki has parents and a past but these things fall apart when held up to close scrutiny. In the end, we find out that Watanuki and Tsubasa, though with different personalities, are the same person. One has to be erased in order for the other to survive. So for them to both go on living, Watanuki has to stay put in a place where time is meaningless while Tsubasa has to continually travel through various dimensions, never settling down anywhere. Since I am bound to make mistakes in my recollection of their story, and have probably made a mistake somewhere in my statements above, I won't say anything anymore. It was their story made me wonder, "What if Rey was sort of like Watanuki?"

Anyway, the chances of what I had just written in the first paragraph happening in Episode IX seem to be very low. Like what Han said, "That's not how the Force works!" It was fun to write this, though. Initially I was thinking of an ending similar to that of XXXholic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle where both Ben and Rey will be allowed to exist but one would have to be trapped in a place where time doesn't flow while the other has to continually travel but that kind of conclusion would be so problematic. So in the end, the idea I got from those anime and manga was Rey having been created out of nowhere to fill in the gap from Ben Solo's disappearance and Kylo Ren's rising.


	2. Rey is Naruto, Kylo Ren is Sasuke

**Musings about the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy and Concepts from Various Anime and Manga**

(Things that probably won't happen but are fun to write about—I need to practice writing anyway. It gets crackier and crackier with each chapter.)

 **Ben Solo is Sasuke, Rey is Naruto**

This one's pretty straight forward. If we remember the story of the manga and anime, Naruto considers Sasuke to be his best friend in spite of the latter's many dubious life choices. When Sasuke defects from his village in order to delve into the dark side to gain the power he needs to carry out his vengeance, Naruto chases after Sasuke to bring him back into the light. After a long, long time and many twists and turns, Naruto accomplishes his mission. Sasuke realizes the error of his ways and is somehow forgiven by the village of Konoha and the rest of the ninja world for his numerous crimes. However, in spite of being welcome to live in the village, Sasuke spends his time wandering around the ninja world, atoning for his and his ancestors' sins. He is always welcome to come back to the village, though, and it greatly helps that Naruto has become the village's new leader.

Now, if we substitute Sasuke with Ben Solo and Naruto with Rey, and tweak a few lines in the story above, the following is produced:

Rey considers Ben Solo to be redeemable in spite of the latter's many dubious life choices. When Ben rises to the position of Supreme Leader of the First Order, delving deeper into the dark side to gain the power needed to quash his insecurities, Rey chases after Ben to bring him back into the light. After a long, long time, and many twists and turns, Rey accomplishes her mission. Ben realizes the error of his ways and is somehow forgiven by the Resistance and the rest of galaxy for his numerous crimes. However, in spite of the Resistance's welcome, Ben spends his time wandering around the galaxy, atoning for his and his ancestors' sins. He is always welcome to come back to wherever the new government is set up, though, and it greatly helps that Rey has become one of the government's new leaders.

Now since one is male and another is female, we can finally fulfill all of our forbidden Sasuke X Naruto desires. Heck, we can even have both Rey and Ben lose their right arms, just like Naruto and Sasuke did. Rey will have a prosthetic arm while Ben will refuse to serves as a reminder of his sins. It won't be a handicap anyway, because he will gain the power to use a "Force Arm."

Just kidding

On a serious note, one of the possible aftermaths of Ben's redemption is for him to wander around the galaxy fixing the wrongs he and his family did. This brings me to another anime. Please go to the next chapter to see what it is.


	3. Rurouni Kenshin: Reflection

**Musings about the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy and Concepts from Various Anime and Manga**

(Things that probably won't happen but are fun to write about—I need to practice writing anyway. It gets crackier and crackier with each chapter.)

 **Rurouni Kenshin: Reflection**

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, one of the possible aftermaths of Ben's redemption is him wandering around the galaxy fixing the various wrongs he finds. This reminds me of the anime Rurouni Kenshin, also known as Samurai X, specifically its final movie called Reflection. Now this movie is something the Rurouni Kenshin manga creator did not like because it gave the characters he created a very tragic ending but there was nothing he could do to prevent the movie's release. He probably signed off the rights to his story when he agreed to the adaptation of his manga into an anime. It kind of reminds me of something. (Wink)

Anyway, if the events of Reflection will be applied to Rey and Ben's story, then this won't be something we will be seeing in Episode IX. This will be a story set some time after the events of the Sequel Trilogy. We will find Rey and Ben married but Ben mostly absent from Rey's life because of his wandering. He would still come back from time to time, though, to fulfill his husbandly duties. Anyway, during the course of his wanderings, he will contract some weird flesh-eating disease that he will eventually pass on to Rey and they shall both suffer needlessly. Instead of staying put, Ben will continue wandering, get shipwrecked on some far away planet and contract amnesia. Rey won't hear from him for a long, long time because the amnesia has affected their ability to communicate with each other through their Force Bond. Ben will eventually be found by either Poe Dameron or Finn who will bring him back to Rey. When Rey sees Ben, she will cry because at long last, the scar on Ben's face has healed, as a symbol of him finally finding the inner peace he has desperately been looking for all of his life. Ben will regain his memories but die in Rey's arms. Rey will follow him to the afterlife not long after.

See? I told you that this would be a tragic story. I remember being so perplexed by the movie because of this senseless ending they gave Kenshin and Kaoru when the ending they got in the manga was already OK. Let this serve as a reminder that sometimes, in spite of our good intentions to continue a story, maybe, just maybe, it would be best to leave it where it originally ended.


	4. Back to Naruto

**Musings about the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy and Concepts from Various Anime and Manga**

(Things that probably won't happen but are fun to write about—I need to practice writing anyway. It gets crackier and crackier with each chapter.)

 **Back to Naruto**

I can't help but return to Naruto because of the seemingly many parallels it has with the new Star Wars trilogy. In an earlier chapter, I mentioned that Kylo Ren/Ben Solo can be compared to Sasuke while Rey can be compared to Naruto. Well this time, I'm going to stretch a bit and say that Snoke can be compared to one of the anime and manga's early villains, Orochimaru.

During the early days of Naruto, before all of those awful filler episodes and when I was still a fan of its anime, I was made to believe that Orochimaru was the big bad guy of the story. He orchestrated a series of events that led to the invasion of Konoha, the powerful ninja village that the titular character Naruto was a part of. Orochimaru killed his teacher and one of Naruto's beloved mentors, the Sandaime Hokage, leader of Konoha village. He seduced Sasuke, Naruto's best friend and team mate with promises of power if only Sasuke would join Orochimaru. In reality, Orochimaru's aim was to train Sasuke to become a powerful ninja so that when the time was right, Orochimaru would possess Sasuke and take over the younger ninja's body.

After a time skip, in which I was no longer watching the anime anymore, and just reading the manga, we find out that Sasuke has indeed grown but in my mind, he was not that powerful yet. So it was sort of a surprise that he was able to defeat Orochimaru in the fight that took place when Orochimaru tried to possess Sasuke. The in-story explanation for this is that although Orochimaru was more intelligent and well versed in esoteric ninja techniques than Sasuke, he was already physically weak during the time of his and Sasuke's fight, and probably too proud to realize that Sasuke could see that. So even if the older, creepy ninja was able to carry out his possession, Sasuke was able to squash Orochimaru's consciousness and retain control over his body. After that trial, Sasuke later went on his merry way to fulfill his dream to kill his brother. And boy, did that turn out well.

From then on, the story of Naruto became more and more convoluted. Orochimaru somehow managed to reappear because his obsessed assistant named Kabuto managed to inject himself with Orochimaru's DNA. Orochimaru was able to take over Kabuto's body through that. But he never became a big bad villain anymore, which leads us to the out-of-story explanation as to why Orochimaru had been defeated easily. He was actually a minor bad guy when compared to the oh-so-many bigger fish in the ocean of villains in Naruto. However, I'm not going to go into them anymore because I don't think the story group behind the new Star Wars trilogy can possibly introduce new "big bads" if it wants to conclude the story in Episode IX.

So how does my discussion of Orochimaru tie up to Episode IX's possible story? Well what if Snoke was like Orochimaru? What if he seduced Ben Solo to the Dark Side because his true aim was to possess Ben's body when the time was right? But that didn't happen because even if he did possess some impressive Force powers and presumably more knowledge about the Dark Side than Kylo Ren, he definitely looked weak and ill plus he was too caught up in his hubris to realize that his apprentice somehow had a hidden deviousness inside of him.

With Snoke's death, Kylo Ren now becomes the Supreme Leader of the First Order which is now the ruling body of the galaxy. While it was never specified what exactly it is that Darth Vader started that Kylo Ren wants to finish, everyone assumes that it is to rule the whole galaxy. Now that Kylo Ren has achieved this dream and finds that it's actually meaningless, he is now on his way to either 1) delving into darkness or 2) turning back to the light. But there is a third option: delving more into darkness before eventually turning back to the light, just like what happened with Sasuke.

What if Snoke really isn't as gone as we suppose he is? What if he manages to hide a fail-safe, a person he can alternately possess, and that person turns out to be his obsessed servant, Hux? Hux will induce Kylo Ren to defect and form a "third party" to what was initially a fight between the Resistance and the First Order. This third party can be Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren. However, Hux and the First Order will continue to grow in power and might so that the only way to defeat it is for the Resistance and the Knights of Ren to form a truce and team up to defeat the First Order. This is, after all, me keeping in line with the Naruto parallels, wherein the only way to defeat the ultimate, crazy, big bad villain at the very end of the manga was through the cooperation of Sasuke and Naruto.

Anyway, even without the fantastic possession angle, Hux can turn out to be a legitimately fearsome foe given what we have seen of him in The Force Awakens and what the tie-in novels say about him. Someone has written about Hux being the true big bad. I admire the author of that piece because she or he used The Hunger Games trilogy as a gauge to assess what could possibly happen in Episode IX.

What happens afterwards can go so many ways. The Last Jedi really had some romantic undertones between Rey and Ben that I wish more people would just recognize even if they don't agree with Episode IX having an ending ala Beauty and the Beast. Because even if the two characters were initially dangerously attracted to each other, it doesn't mean that they have to end up together. You could have an ending like The Phantom of the Opera where Ben lets Rey go to be happy with another guy. I personally want to have an ending like V for Vendetta, where the masked V has fallen in love with Evie but her experiences with him has have toned down whatever romantic feelings she may have had for him. Instead these experiences helped her move on to become a stronger person who will finish what V started after he dies in his heroic last stand. Or, just to keep in line with my Naruto comparison, it could possibly end up just like how I crackingly discussed stuff in my previous Naruto essay. We also could be getting an "unresolved" end in order to have another trilogy without the shadow of Han, Leia, Luke and Vader, just Rey, Ben and the new characters. My golly, I hope that the latter does not happen.


End file.
